Friday, January 16, 2009

schotz

A relative happy child hood left me hideously unprepared for life.

I knew a girl who kept losing her keys. It's possible looking back on things, that she really didn't want to leave. But that of course could have been just wishful thinking on my part. See I let life get in the way. As many of you know that at one timeI wanted to be a star, and maybe I should have been wishing upon a star.

Over the weekend I went to the establishment that once was the former Schotz, my favorite Amarillo watering hole. Schotz closed down a few years back due to the arrival of what Lauen called the Wal Mart of Bars came into Amarillo.

The new place was familiar, but with unfamiliar faces.

I spent several hours drinking, and dreaming and watching unfamiliar faces and dreams pass by like so many center lines down a lonesome rural Texas highway.

I like certain bars, You see wanna be karoke singers. You see pieces of peoples lives that will never fit together again. You see couples holding hands like in a story book.

And at times you want to grab the karoke microphone from the person holding it and announce, " Will the person in the sky blue 1953 Cadillac please return to your vehicle? Paging Mister Holly, you flight has been cancelled. Patsy don't go walking after Midnight."

The bad parts about a bar is it is difficult to call yourself so you can hear your own voice remind you that if you don't die trying to get out of your own way you'll never be the person you always wanted when you grow up and become an adult.

Bars are also sad. They cannot effectively really help us. Their bars for Christ sake not shrinks. They know their own decor, their own brands of bars and liquors. They also know one gives a rats ass.

This particular new bar with its new decor had pictures of faraway places. Like Rome, Paris, London, Las Vegas, reminders that there are better places to be on a Saturday night than Amarillo.

The girl who kept misplacing her keys and I had spent many evenings together at this place when it was Schotz.. The best scenes in a bar are much like the best dreams that are often dreamed in cheap hotels. Like all star crossed lovers we lived in our dreams and dreamed of our lives.

After one such evening she found her keys and drove away. as I watched her disappear from site I murmered to myself, " Wes you are witnessing the end of a fairy tale."

That was the exact moment I realized I was never going to be a prince.

The trouble with girls who keep losing their keys is that you have to keep saying goodbye to them until one day they are finally gone, and you realize that all of your life you've been busy saying goodbye or dreaming.

Maybe it had been the dreaming of her and the drinks, that when I left at closing time and stepped into the brightly lighted familiar parking lot, that the cars and people appeared hazy and unfocused. But then it might not have been the result of dreaming or drinking. It could be that's just the way the world looks when you have tears in your eyes.